This year's …

What's it all about?

An adaptation of Larry Brown's 1991 novel, with Nicolas Cage on barnstorming form as the brawling badass of the title, but one attempting to live his life the right way by – among other things – taking a vagabond 14-year-old under his wing. Director David Gordon Green, for it is he, soaks the visuals with a beautifully rundown atmosphere, rusty and overgrown – of a kind we haven't seen since his early movies, George Washington and All the Real Girls.

How did it happen?

Green has clearly begun to think better of his abrupt career-swandive into the party-vomit movie treadmill – Pineapple Express, Your Highness – and is now nosing his way back towards artistic credibility. With Sundance special Prince Avalanche under his belt, Joe takes the rehabilitation a step further; Cage, too, is in need of a signature performance to remind people he's not just the grinning doofus of Ghost Rider or Drive Angry.

Nominations it wants

Cage has delivered, and must be anticipating a bit of action come nomination night, in the best actor slot. Green, too, may make an impression: this is the kind of meaty drama the Academy likes, and could get him a best pic nom, if not best director. Wild cards would be best adapted screenplay for Gary Hawkins, and a best supporting nom for Tye Sheridan, who follows eye catching work in The Tree of Life and Mud with this.

What it might win

Cage is in with a good shout, and, depending how the cards fall, Sheridan could get lucky.

Reasons to fall for it

Underneath the misery-chic, Joe is a good old-fashioned redemption story, and one that finds an echo in the career paths of its star and director. Faced with this triple whammy, the Academy may have no option other than to roll over and have its tummy tickled.

Reasons it might fail

Big-shot actors playing dirt-poor country folk may stick in the craw a little; we tend to prefer it if we've never heard of them before – viz, Beasts of the Southern Wild, or indeed Winter's Bone. Cage may therefore drop points on the authenticity meter. Plus I personally witnessed Harvey Weinstein wander out halfway through a film festival screening, suggesting he wasn't fantastically taken with it. And he should know.

When can we see it?

It played both Venice and Toronto, and does have a US distributor (Roadside Attractions), but no official release date has been announced.